


Nocturnal Anyway

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27551071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: A hit and a scar and the way a life sometimes has to change.
Relationships: Kelley O'Hara/Hope Solo
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Nocturnal Anyway

There’s a scar on the back of Kelley’s neck. Just over three inches long, thin and silvery in the moonlight. But Hope remembers when it was red and raw and new.

It’s a memory, made flesh. The time that she could have lost her, Kelley. It’s the map of their long road toward recovery, to this moment, feeling the warmth of Kelley’s skin in the late night darkness and knowing, they’ll wake together again tomorrow.

Every night, Hope looks, and remembers.

“Love you,” she whispers over the line, and listens to Kelley breathe. Just a little longer now, just a few more breaths.

She doesn’t want to waste a single one.

—–

It’s the first game against Kelley’s old team.

But at least this first time, it’s on their pitch, in front of the Reign fans that have welcomed their newest defender with open arms.

Still, Hope knows, Kelley’s apprehensive. Playing against her former teammates and friends, hearing Christie’s voice calling marks and remembering that she’s wearing Seattle blue.

They’ve talked about it, a little here and there. Late nights on the couch in the home they share. Roommates to start in the beginning, way back in the off-season, but slowly working towards becoming more.

“I didn’t move for you,” Kelley’d said the first night the guest room went unused, “but you were at the top of the Pros list.”

Hope’d laughed at that. Thrown her head back onto the stack of pillows at the head of the bed and laughed, Kelley stretched out on top of her, playing with the ends of her hair.

“Just don’t tell Pinoe–she’s convinced you moved here for her,” Hope teased back and kissed her, mind full of thoughtful wonder at how easily Kelley had slipped into her life, into her home and her bed.

How Kelley was already inside her heart.

Now, days and weeks and months later, Hope knows that Kelley is the end for her. Knows that, whatever Kelley wants for them, she’s in. Whole-heartedly.

“Hey,” she says, slipping into the shower behind her partner, wrapping her arms around Kelley’s warm, wet waist as she rests her head on the shorter woman’s shoulder. “You’re up early for a game day.”

But Kelley doesn’t say anything. Just reaches around to scratch gently at Hope’s neck. And it’s okay. Because Hope knows.

—–

The morning passes slowly, Kelley taking their newest dog out for a run while Hope studies her notes on Sky Blue. And she smiles when she sees her page on Kelley, remembering that the last time she flipped through these pages, O'Hara was a name on the opposing roster.

She wanders the house after wrapping up her refresher, taking in all the things that have changed since that last game. The pictures of people she’s grown to love hanging on the wall, the pile of shoes that never gets completely put away at the door. Notes in Kelley’s neat, angular hand on the fridge, a doctor’s appointment, a dinner out with friends, that it’s Hope’s turn to go shopping.

And then there’s a jingle of dog tags in the mudroom, and the best change in her life is walking through the door.

“All studied up, Keep?” Kelley asks, keeping her distance, sweat rolling down her face. And if they didn’t have a game later, Hope would go up to her, kiss the grin off of her face, and drag her up to the shower, get them both sweaty and clean.

Instead, she just smiles and nods.

They’ll have plenty of time later.

They’ve got all the time in the world.

—–  
—–

When she opens her eyes, she sees Hope, looking down at her. And she wants to speak, wants to say “hi,” “good morning,” just like she always does, but her mouth isn’t quite working like it should, and there’s a ringing in her ears that isn’t their alarm.

She blinks.

Or she thinks she blinks.

Everything goes dark for a second. Or maybe longer.

But when she can see again, she realizes that she’s not in her bed, that Hope’s eyes, looking down with her, aren’t full of want and need but fear, desperate and cold. And if she concentrates hard enough, she can hear Hope’s voice.

“It’s okay, Kel, it’s going to be okay. Just don’t move. I’ve got you, we’ve got you.”

Over and over, as shadows play over her, as someone tries to block the early afternoon sun from her eyes, comes the mantra, the frantic prayer, from the woman she loves.

Darkness again, and she can no longer tell the difference between the real shadows and the ones fogging up her thoughts. But if there’s a single thing that grounds her, that keeps the fear at the back of her thoughts at bay, it’s Hope’s blue eyes, the way her mouth moves around the words Kelley can only guess she’s saying.

It’s that she knows–as long as she’s got Hope, as long as Hope has her–everything will be okay.

—–  
—–

The collision is wild. The kind of flirting with disaster only Kai can manage successfully, throwing her body into the air with abandon, determined to come away with the ball.

And Kelley, her fierce defender, flying through the air, head outstretched, chasing after that same ball, that same chance.

Hope sees it happen in slow motion, is off her line and running toward the falling players the moment after contact is made.

Maybe it’s in the way Kelley seems to go boneless almost instantly, her head ricocheting back after colliding with Tasha’s.

Maybe it was the way she crumpled to the pitch, head hitting the ground a second time, and stayed down, unmoving.

Maybe it was just instinct, a rolling in her gut, a shiver down her spine.

It doesn’t matter.

She’s at Kelley’s side in a matter of seconds, shouting for medical as she runs. Kai’s rolling on the ground nearby, clutching at her head, already trying to stand.

But Kelley–Kelley is still.

And Hope has never been more afraid in her life.

—–

Her gloves are still on, she realizes as she holds Kelley’s head steady, supporting her neck as best she can while the medics sprint across the field.

Soon enough the space around them is a hive of activity, EMTs and trainers, people barking instructions that fade away into the background, crowded out by the buzz of Hope’s thoughts as she watches Kelley’s face and prays.

There’s no question of her going back into the net, Hope realizes. She doesn’t give a shit about the rest of the game.

What matters is the woman she’d helped to carefully–carefully–roll onto the hard backboard, who’d looked up at her with scared, confused eyes as the straps were carefully wound around her body, securing her to the board, preventing her from moving.

In case there was more damage that could be done. More than whatever had already occurred.

And as she climbs into the back of the ambulance, glaring down the EMT who’d suggested she find another way to the hospital, Hope realizes–

She still has her gloves on.

—–

No one will tell her anything, and Hope is getting desperate, angrier with each passing second.

Her control is slipping, and any moment, Hope knows, she’s going to break.

Finally, they get hold of Kelley’s parents, and they tell the doctors to update her. They tell the doctors that any decisions should go through Kelley’s partner.

“I’ll tell you everything I find out,” she promises them, and thinks about the things she hadn’t believed she was ready for yet.

She’d been wrong.

She was so ready.

She’d wasted so much time.

—–

“It’s a broken neck,” she explains to Dan and Karen when they arrive, “and they’re not sure yet the extent of the damage to her spinal cord. They said something about a delayed response to stimuli, so they think there’s a chance she could have permanently injured herself.”

She explains everything the doctors had told her, somehow managing to fight off the tears she knows are there. But she can’t get the image of Kelley, motionless, out of her mind.

“They took her to surgery, and someone’s supposed to update us when they can,” Hope adds, trying to look more optimistic than she feels, but she knows she must have failed when Karen steps into her space and hugs her tight.

“Oh, honey,” Kelley’s mom says softly, “it’s going to be okay.”

And she cries then.

And for the first time in forever, she doesn’t care who sees her.

—–

“We’re going to have to wait for the swelling to go down to know more,” the neurologist says to the room. “There’s a complete fracture at C-6, with a hairline break at C-5, but no obvious permanent damage to the spinal cord. An impact like this–the shock and the swelling around injured tissues, it places a lot of pressure on the cord, and can mimic paralysis temporarily.”

The doctor looks at Kelley’s parents and Hope fists her hands in her pocket, struggling not to flinch when she feels Erin put a soft hand to her shoulder.

“–stabilized the vertebrae and repaired the fracture,” another doctor says as Hope struggles to focus on the words, “but we’re keeping her pretty heavily sedated for right now. When we woke her in recovery, she was struggling against the tube, but there’s concern over the ability of a patient to breath without assistance in these types of injuries.”

“When can I–we–see her,” Hope asks. She realizes that officially, as far as the hospital and law are concerned, she has no place here. She’s just the teammate, the housemate. Not the partner, not the girlfriend or the wife.

But Erin leans into her, and Dan looks over at her with eyes that are red-rimmed but soft, understanding. And Hope knows, her place is here. With them, with Kelley’s family.

“How soon can our family see her,” Karen asks again, nodding at Hope as she took her husband’s hand.

—–

There’s a quiet symphony of sound in the glass-walled room. A rhythm of clicks and beeps, the whoosh of the machine that breathes for Kelley, the gentle pad of orthopedic shoes just beyond the open door.

For two hour blocks, it’s the most beautiful song that Hope has ever heard, and she sings along in her own way, whispering over Kelley’s sleeping body, telling her everything that’s going on, what the doctors have said, how Jerry dropped the pizza he brought for the nurses yesterday and had to go out and get a new one.

She watches as Kelley heals, head held carefully in position, the metal halo that Hope is slowly getting used to seeing. But mostly she tells Kelley how much she’s loved, and waits, and listens for a change in the rhythm.

And waits.

“Hey,” Dan says from the doorway, knocking softly, “do you mind if I join you?”

And Hope realizes that her time is up, and starts to rise to make room for the next shift. But Kelley’s father puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“No, stay,” he says, and sits in the chair next to her, “Karen and Erin went outside for a walk, and Jerry’s at your place, spending some time with the dogs. I thought maybe you and I could have some time together.”

And Hope nods.

They sit together quietly for a few minutes before Dan breaks the silence.

“She’s been happy,” he says, not looking up from his crossword. “Karen and I were talking about it before all this happened. She struggled after Canada, and then with Rio, she was downright depressed.”

It’s not news to Hope. She knows–the drop-off after a big win can be just as painful as a heart-breaking loss.

“She’s seemed happy,” the goalkeeper agrees. “I think the move was good for her, the new team. She loved Sky Blue but was always frustrated with the market culture.”

Dan puts down the paper, looking over at her, and he’s got that smile, that soft little smile that Kelley gives her sometimes, when she thinks she knows something Hope doesn’t.

“It’s not the team, Hope, or the city, or any of the hundreds of things that she could have anywhere else.”

He nods over at his daughter in the bed, “Her reason is you. She’s happy and she’s in love with you.”

And Hope isn’t sure what to say to him. She knows, of course, how Kelley feels about her, she’s heard the words. A thousand times in a thousand ways. But she’s thought that their relationship was a complement to the brightness in Kelley’s eyes lately, or the way her smile never seems to waver, never seems to wane.

Dan is telling her that she’s got it backward. That soccer is the bonus.

That she is the draw, the reason for Kelley’s cheerful face, the happy lilt of her laugh.

“Don’t look so surprised, Hope,” he says with a small grin that’s almost fatherly. “You’re a good person, and you love her. It shouldn’t surprise you so much that she loves you back.”

“I do love her,” she tells Kelley’s father. “I’ve been trying to decide how to ask her to stay–to marry me.”

He doesn’t look surprised, and she raises her eyebrows.

“Hope, you’re head over heels in love with my daughter. She feels the same for you. Erin started a pool back in April.”

He lay a warm hand over hers, where she held Kelley’s on the bed.

“If you could ask before her birthday,” Dan teased her, “I’d split the pot with you.”

And she laughs. Maybe for the first time since the field.

“Whatever happens, no matter what,” she tells him, putting words to the emotions she’s been struggling to control for the past several days, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry that–”

But Dan interrupts her.

“We know, Hope. We know.”

—–  
—–

A beeping sound breaks through the last heavy fingers of darkness, and then the scent of antiseptic. Of sickness and desperation.

And this time, when she wakes, there’s no confusion. Just awareness, almost painful after who knows how long of nothing.

The lights, they hurt her eyes, and the sound of the hospital, it slips into the spaces between her thoughts, and everything is heavy–so heavy.

Her eyelids, the air in her lungs, her limbs.

Heavy enough that she can’t move.

And that’s when she gets scared.

“Hey, hey,” Hope’s voice floats down to her from above, and there’s the woman she loves.

“No, don’t try to speak, there’s still a tube in your throat to help you breathe.”

Something, Kelley knows, has gone terribly wrong. But she doesn’t remember what.

“I’m here, I’ve got you,” Hope says, and squeezes her hand.  
  
And pieces begin to flood back.

And the darkness follows.

—–

She wakes again, and this time it’s her mother’s voice at her side. Others that she doesn’t recognize.

And then there’s a gentle hand on her arm and a long, painful cough, and she’s free from the tube and the ventilator.

“That’s my girl,” her mom says as she coughs and chokes and struggles to remind her muscles, her lungs, what their job is. But in a minute or two, she’s breathing again–painfully–but on her own.

“What happened,” Kelley asks, the words rough and broken, her voice sounding strange in her own ears. And she tries to turn to her mother, but there’s something stopping her, something holding her back.

And she gets scared.

There’s an alarm that trills as she struggles, as her heart races and her weak lungs fight to keep up. But then, over everything, there’s Hope. At her side, a gentle hand on her face as she whispers.

“Hey, Kel,” Hope says, and Kelley focuses on the sound of her voice, the soft and gentle whisper of it. “Just breathe, honey, slow breaths. You’re okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

And Kelley believes her.

—–

Things come back slowly.

Most things.

Her memory of the game is non-existent, the concussion that was the lesser of her injuries stealing away all but snippets of the match. The whistle, Hope shouting from goal, and then the aftermath, Hope looking down at her, the clear afternoon sky beyond–these she can recall, though as if they were a dream.

But everything else, it’s gone.

Feeling returns, and the halo is removed, replaced by a neck brace that sometimes chafes against her skin. But there are mornings when she wakes up with her arms tingling, like she’d slept on them all night, and her fingers sometimes feel clumsy and weak, dropping things she knows she shouldn’t.

And one little spot, just inside her elbow, where she feels nothing at all.

But she’s alive. Every night she gets to fall asleep with Hope and wake up with her in the morning. The future could have turned out so different, she knows. She could have lost everything.

—-

“With continued rehab,” the doctor tells her, months down the line, “there’s no reason you won’t be able to lead a very active lifestyle. But–”

Kelley already knows what follows.

“But no more soccer,” she finishes for him, the hammer dropping.

And the most curious thing?

It doesn’t hurt as much as she’d anticipated.

“No more soccer,” the doctor confirms as Hope’s hand makes soothing patterns over her back. “Your recovery so far has been nothing short of remarkable, but I don’t anticipate seeing much progress beyond where you are today. I think we’re at a plateau in terms of future improvement. I don’t see you ever recovering full range of motion or strength in your arms and hands.”

She nods, leaning back into Hope’s touch.

“And then the possibility of reinjury,” Kelley adds, the doctor nodding along.

“Soccer being such a full-contact sport,” he agrees, “I can’t in good-conscience sign the medical release. Already your spinal column and cord are more vulnerable than they were pre-injury. A bad tackle? A risky challenge in the air? You could end up paralyzed or worse.”

And when he looks at her and apologizes, Kelley realizes that it’s okay.

That she’s okay.

—–

“Hey” she says in the elevator, as Hope hugs her from behind “it’s okay. I’m okay.”

But Hope holds her tighter, and Kelley reaches up to lace their fingers together, feeling their rings knock together gently. “We knew what he was going to say,” she whispers softly, soothingly, and squeezes Hope’s hand.

Hope nods, and watches their reflection in the mirror.

“Of course, this means that if we want, we can move the next chapter up a little,” she whispers into Kelley’s ear, and moves their joined hands to settle over the younger woman’s belly.

Kelley smiles, and if there are tears in her eyes, they’re happy ones.

She’s ready to start again.

**Author's Note:**

> "Times Like These," Eden Project


End file.
